


Journey to Kolonos

by oddcellist



Category: Oedipus Cycle - Sophocles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-23
Updated: 2004-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-25 05:30:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1634021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oddcellist/pseuds/oddcellist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On his way to Kolonos, Polyneikes reflects on his relationship with his father.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Journey to Kolonos

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Voleuse

 

 

The sun in Attica is hot, thinks Polyneikes, but nevertheless he cannot seem to get himself warm, no matter how tightly he wraps his chiton around him. He is getting used to journeying as a supplicant - the last months have been spent crossing the plain of Boeotia in his attempt to build the army he will need - but he thinks he will never quite wear the uncertainty of his position easily and without fatigue, as he has watched others do. He envies them that; he imagines, when on the rare night he sleeps in the bed he will not call home, that even if they were all exiles, still none of them would understand how far he has fallen. Even his few companions look at him with small rebellion in their eyes when he tells them to keep moving; he supposes that a tired man in a dirt-stained chiton is no inspiring sight, but he does not feel that mere dust is worth his concern. He is worth more than this, and he chooses every day to fight with the rage that comes from knowing that he has been stripped by his brother of everything he owns.

But this journey is not about him, because it can't be - if there is anyone among the Greeks who has suffered more than he has, he must admit that the title belongs to his father, if only because his father had attained the kingship for so many years, and in losing it lost all hope of finding a home. His own guilt in bringing about his father's hunger and penury is something he will take gladly. And yet he does not want to make this journey, does not want to see his father reduced to the state he has come to think of as exclusively his own. He remembers being told at every point of his education that to show fear, to sweat and to pale, is the mark of a slave; gladly, he thinks, he will accept his own sweat and pallor now, if it will bring him closer to his father, punctuating his shame.

Polyneikes closes his eyes and pretends he can remember his father holding him as a baby close against his chest, but he doesn't have any real memories until he draws himself as an eight-year-old being chastised for not learning his lessons properly. Oedipus had come in, then, and in that moment when Polyneikes's tutor had fallen silent and turned to the richly-robed figure in the doorway, Polyneikes thinks he learned for the first time what power looks like, and how perfectly his father embodied his status among the men of Thebes. Every memory from that point joins the pattern that only Polyneikes seems to have learnt properly, all of them expressing that same rightness in power that so awed him the first time. If fate had not taken that power from Oedipus, Polyneikes might now covet his father's position, but such lesser emotions have been burnt out of him. Only his admiration has been left in the wreckage, his wonder at how a man who in private was manifestly slightly deformed managed still somehow through his stance to convey the inevitability of his reign. Of course, that inevitability belongs to what he indulges in calling Before, as if the event should have universal significance as that time when revelations and curses had yet to come down upon the house, but despite everything that has happened, against all better sense, Polyneikes still thinks that he could feel safe again, that his world would open up to him if only Oedipus could show himself still to have that strength upon which he has always been borne. Polyneikes remembers himself as a child having the most perfect of faiths in his father's strength, and more than anything else, he wants to have that trust behind him when he makes his move against his fate. This, he is sure, is what the oracle had in mind when it mentioned the role Oedipus would have in the fraternal struggle.

One of his companions tells him that they will soon reach Kolonos, scattering his thoughts. He curses himself for not having tried to reach his father earlier; the thought of him in rags is suddenly too painful to bear. If he did not come earlier, he reassures himself, it is only because he knew his father so well before, and could not bear to see for himself the king at the mercy of others for his dwelling; but how much worse it would be to come upon the shadow of a man, sapped of strength. The thought of such a discovery almost makes Polyneikes turn back to Argos, in spite of the preparations and goodwill it would cost him to abandon the effort now. If he had been less cowardly, he thinks, the meeting with his father would easily have been won, his cause would be certain of triumph; even so, he wonders if seeing his father might not be more important than the war itself, if there is not some error of principle he has made in seeking his own justice so avidly. He wonders, lightly, if he is resolved to his fate, and how he will take it if indeed his own father should cast him away - as he has every right to do, given his behavior, given that he has not given his sisters a single rest in the long years of tending by taking up their duties himself. Yet if his father is still proud enough in his shame to hold himself as if he is somehow better than Polyneikes, having survived the greater fall, then he thinks he can rest his confidence on that strange pride, and so buoyed attain final victory, even without his father's blessing.

Oedipus will not be pleased to see him, and he thinks it wisest to dismiss his companions until he should finish; he himself will play beggar to his father, and he does not want to be watched by anyone for whom it is not absolutely necessary. He wonders if it will help his cause that the lone figure is also, as a rule, the most pitiable. In the distance, he can already see a grove, with three figures standing apart from the rest. He is still too far to make out their features with certainty, but if he tries, he can see those same figures among the halls of Thebes, can see himself among them. Soon, he thinks, he will be among family again, although it is under question whether that can be entirely good. It is time for him to take up the burdens of war-leader and neglectful son, and as the figures grow in his sight the last and continuous moment of fear before he must approach comes. He stands, paralyzed by the fear that Oedipus will refuse to hear him at all, that he will not be allowed even the sight of his father. He resolves to pray for a good reception and time to make his case, and as he comes to the temple of Poseidon he approaches the altar, hesitation gone, and begs the god for his aid.

 


End file.
